Friday, September 10, 2004

Brilliant Digital, Altnet Sue RIAA

Woodland Hills-based Brilliant Digital Entertainment and its subsidiary Altnet announced yesterday that they have filed a patent infringement suit against the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The company said that the group is in breach of a patent it holds for unique naming of files across a peer-to-peer network. The suit also names Overpeer, Loudeye, and Media Sentry as defendants. Altnet said that the use of file "spoofing" by the RIAA and the other defendants has damaged the company's file sharing business. The RIAA and other groups have been presenting bogus files that appear to be copyrighted music files on the Altnet network, making it difficult or impossible for users to download real working music files. The lawsuit is an interesting turnaround for the RIAA, which has been aggressively pursuing lawsuits against individual file swappers; this suit finds the group as a defendant. Altnet said that it maintains a legitimate network focused on legally distributing licensed digital content.

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